Linda Douglass, the former ABC News reporter and current senior advisor to the Obama campaign, lashed out at John McCain and Mitt Romney by labeling them “extremely conservative on social issues” in an interview on Saturday’s “Morning Joe.” Co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski failed to point out that liberals like Obama can be extreme in their views on social issues, too.
After Douglass repeatedly played up the foreign policy experience of Obama’s chosen running mate Sen. Joe Biden, Brzezinski asked Douglass about Biden’s experience in dealing with economic issues, especially if Romney, known for being well-versed in economic issues were to become McCain’s running mate. Douglass touted Biden’s experience with economic policy before inexplicably twisting her answer to include abortion.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Well Linda, let me ask you about that. Because if we’re looking at a potential Mitt Romney match-up with John McCain, how does Joe Biden fit the bill when it comes to being really strong on the economy, which most definitely will be the central issue of the campaign?So it’s “extreme” to be pro-life, but it’s not “extreme” to oppose a law that guarantees medical intervention to preserve the life of babies who survive abortion procedures? Obama did just that as an
LINDA DOUGLASS: Well first of all Joe Biden is an expert on almost every subject that has ever come before the Congress. And he, as I said earlier, is a guy who is rooted in the middle class, has always fought for the middle class in many many ways, economic policies, vote upon vote in terms of making sure that Americans have liveable wages, make sure that they have affordable housing, very equitable policies that he’s embraced throughout his career. Mitt Romney is a business man, he is also somebody with no foreign policy expertise to speak of. Mitt Romney is also somebody who is extremely conservative on social issues. He would go with John McCain in terms of believing in that abortion should be outlawed even in cases of rape and incest. There are many many contrasts we could draw certainly between Joe Biden and Barack Obama and Mitt Romney should he become John McCain’s pick.
It’s not a surprise that Douglass would bring up the abortion issue. Her 2003 report for ABC on the “abortion battle” that aired on the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade was blatantly in favor of abortion. It contained the following statements:
In Pennsylvania, some patients must drive hundreds of miles to this clinic run by Jennifer Boulanger....Pennsylvania requires a woman seeking an abortion to wait for 24 hours. She must listen to a state-mandated speech and will be offered pictures of a developing fetus. The doctor, who does not want his face shown for fear of protesters, says it is not easy....More states are restricting abortion....The laws have driven some doctors out of the abortion business. Today 87 percent of
counties have no abortion provider. U.S.
